Australian GTA IV Rating, Take2 Close to Bankruptcy

Two days ago the fourth installment of Grand Theft Auto received its official rating. The game got the "MA15+" label that's usual for GTAs so far, and as a kind of sub-banner they also stuck on the descriptors "Strong violence", "Strong coarse language" and "Drug and sexual reference". These labels roughly mean that people under 15 could only play (or rather, would only be able to play) with parental supervision, and on top of that the game is violent, the characters swear in it, and we can even run into drugs and saucy references. So, nothing new.

The news isn't really news because of the above information, but much more because the website of the Australian government's classification board lists the rated game as the official version. This could even mean that Rockstar Games has finished work on GTA IV and the game is ready for release. Last time, with GTA Vice City Stories, they started classifying the game exactly a month and a half before release.

But when will the long-awaited treat arrive? What's certain is that on December 18 Take-Two Interactive will release its report on the budget of the fourth quarter of the 2007 financial year, in which (or after which) the official release date could even become public.

How long will they drag out the release? Will they take the plunge and release the game at the end of the first financial quarter (end of January)? Or will they stand by their earlier statement that the release will be sometime between early February and the end of April, and release it at the first opportunity, in early February? It may even be that they'll stretch the time to the very limit, along with the nerves of hundreds of thousands, even millions of fanatics, and the game will only hit the store shelves at the end of April.

According to financial analysts, it would be better for Take2 if the release happened as soon as possible - yours truly thinks so too - since the company is already close to bankruptcy, not to mention what will happen if the release slips further. It's possible that by January or February T2 won't simply run out of money, but will even use up its reserves. Currently almost 32 percent of Take 2 Interactive's assets are in private hands, which does show that investors believe in the success of GTA IV - for Activision this value is 3%, for EA 3.7%, for THQ 15.7%, and for Midway 22.7%.

Experts think the company can get through the lean period if it can hold the release date set last August, and after that the main shareholders will suddenly be rolling in money, since according to preliminary estimates 7.5-8.5 million copies of the game will be sold by the end of October, and after a year this number could even reach 12-13 million.